Lusitania: An Examination of Captaincy and Seamanship in the Face of Disaster

Abstract

The last voyage of the RMS Lusitania is examined. The Cunard liner left New York for Liverpool on May 1, 1915 as the conflict in Europe began to escalate. The research separates the act of war from the actions of the ship\u27s command and control infrastructure and the seamanship of its crew. This distinction is made under a thesis that more lives could have and should have been saved. The central question of the research was therefore: to what extent should the captain and crew of RMS Lusitania be held to account for the elevated loss of life in the hostile sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915 and to what degree did this singular tragedy influence American public opinion toward the War

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